Just ahead of the release of their new album, Planet Loud caught up with Brann from metal titans Mastodon to find out what inspired Crack The Skye.

Planet Loud – Well, you’ve just been confirmed to play with Metallica at Knebworth in August…
Mas todon – Yeah, that’s gonna be pretty awesome.

Planet Loud – You’ve Download and Reading and some pretty big shows over in the UK, how do you think they’ll compare to playing with the metal gods themselves?
Mastodon – Well, they’re all big festivals with tons of people and it’s always great to do those shows but Metallica is the nice icing on the cake for us. We’re huge Metallica fans. We’ve played with them before when we toured with them a couple of summers ago and we played Wembley Stadium and that was ‘woooah’.. it’s an honour to play with them.

Planet Loud – Metallica shows, new album, what else have you got lined up?
Mastodon – We’re just gonna start touring this record after it comes out. We’re just rehearsing for that. The headline tour in America starts in April for five or six weeks then we come over and do two and a half months with Metallica in Europe and then we’re just gearing up for that big run as we’re going to be away from home for a long time.

Planet Loud – The album is out in the next few weeks. For Mastodon fans who haven’t heard the record, what can they expect from it?
Mastodon – Well, it sounds like a Mastodon record but, collectively, it’s our favourite peice of art that we have made together. I think we have taken a big leap forward in our eyes and grown up a little on it.

Planet Loud – You described it on the biog as “the album that you’ve always wanted to make”…
Mastodon – I think every album we make is the album we wanted to make at that time but I think this album, there is something else about it, there is something special about it which meant it took this length of time of us playing together for us to get to.

Planet Loud – Did you get that feeling record when you recorded it?
Mastodon – Yeah and I still get that feeling now.

Planet Loud – Going back to when the band formed, did you have a vision of how you wanted the band to sound and is this album close to that vision?
Mastodon – We didn’t have any preconceived notion but we knew what we were all into at the time. We loved Neurosis, we loved The Melvins so.. I think each person in the band has their own vast musical catalogue that everybody is into. The stuff we’ve always listened to is really starting to come out in our music now. I’m talking about bands like King Crimson, early Genesis, Yes – that more progressive side to the band. I think we’re finally realising that it is okay for us to go there which is great as we’re naturally heading in the direction anyway. Like I said though, it’s not a preconceived idea, once we stop touring a record and start writing a new record, it’s really about what we’re digging at the time. We come in, see what everyone has done and what ideas everyone has and whatever we like we like.

Planet Loud – Do you enjoy the writing process?
Mastodon – Yeah, it’s fun to see what is going to come up and how it develops. I like the series of breakthroughs that everybody has. You don’t know how things are going to sound and everyone is doing their own parts. We go to practise every day and you might go a week without anything really happening when suddenly you have a day where you write an entire song and you really like and everyone is smiling. It’s a really interesting process. It goes up and down, up and down – it’s a real rollercoaster as you’re second guessing yourself the whole way through the process. “I don’t know, if it’s good enough..”, you’re always questioning yourself as you’re worried that it doesn’t sound how it should then when you get the final peice and you hear it complete and as it’s supposed to be heard it’s all cool.

Planet Loud – Bearing in mind Mastodon isn’t a “hit singles” band, how does the writing process work?
Mastodon – It’s a few different things – we don’t really have one way. We’re a really democratic band so the more ideas everyone has the better. We all chip in with ideas and we put our touch on the music. Even if one person writes a riff, everyone gets involved in it. Brett might write a song at his house in his pyjamas in the morning then come to practise or we might find a riff that hasn’t had a home for five years and it just fits perfectly and then that riff has a home forever. We’re riff collectors then we combine them when we get some time. We spend a lot of time in the arrangement process.

Planet Loud – Bearing in mind the album really needs to be listened to as a whole, how does the construction process work?
Mastodon – You just kinda know after you go back and forth with ideas. With this record we could just see it unfolding and coming together as we were creating it. It all really fell into place. The music just seemed to fit together then the lyrics came together then it all just started to fall into place and the story started to make sense. This one fell into place a lot easier and it was pretty obvious how it was going to go. The only question was what was going to go first on the record.

Planet Loud – How did you decide?
Mastodon – I dunno. You know, I was on the fence with this one. I questioned whether it should be this song or that song. I wanted Divinations and the only reason for that was because we’ve always come out swinging on our previous records and sucked the listener in that way. I also felt that the opening part of Obliveon is really nice and different. We sat and questioned each other as to why we thought Divinations would be a great opener or why Obliveon but, in the end, we went with Obliveon just because that beginning sounded engaging and we all felt it would suck people in immediately.

Planet Loud – How did you select the songs and the order they went in?
Mastodon – We were just really brutal on what worked and what didn’t. With those seven we felt confident that those were the seven that worked best and that’s pretty much it. We looked at each other and said “that’s it, that’s the record..” and I don’t think we could see anything else fitting in there.

Planet Loud – You described this record as like “an emotional journey the band have been on”. What’s it like delving into the kind of emotions that went into this record?
Mastodon – I think it was necessary as I think that the music being played deserved it.

Planet Loud – Did you have to put yourself into a mindset before exploring those emotions or did it all come naturally?
Mastodon – It was pretty easy as there are things in my personal past that I was able to put onto this record. There were places that I had never gone before lyrically but we just felt it was proper for this record.

Planet Loud – You mentioned things in your personal past you have never discussed before, why was now the right time to do this?
Mastodon – It was just the vibe of the music made it seem like it was coming from a deeper place and that there was more too it. I personally felt that I would get more out of it and, maybe even the band, if we get extremely personally with the lyrics.

Planet Loud – How hard was it at the beginning to explore those emotions?
Mastodon – Well, they’ve always been there for me so it’s not something I’ve never dealt with, it’s a constant, every day thing. The only thing that was difficult about the process was when I was listening to the record after it had finished, there are certain lines that are taken directly from specific situations that trigger memories which aren’t the easiest memories to think about. That’s a little wierd but I like that, I think that it is really good to have that deep connection as you should have that deep connection with your art. I’m not saying I haven’t had that with our previous work but there is something about this one that is different.

Planet Loud – Has writing about those situations helped you deal with them?
Mastodon – Not necessarily. I wouldn’t say it’s a cathartic exercise as those emotions are always going to be there and it’s who I am. If anything, it’s more of a tribute to keep somebody’s memory alive.

Planet Loud – Back towards the end of 2007 there was another crisis within the band went Brent was injured, how did that affect you?
Mastodon – I think it kind of shook us up at first and we were scared for him and our band and I think, for the first time, we felt fragile as a band. We then found out he was going to be alright and it was a huge relief. Brett’s a trooper so we knew he would be at home playing guitar and he’d join us when he was ready. While he was recovering, we tried to work as normally as we possibly could and tried to carry on with the project as we would have done if he was there.

Planet Loud – Did that event make you re-evaluate what was important in your life?
Mastodon – I don’t know if it did that to me. I’ve always known what’s important but I don’t think it made me re-evaluate the importance of those things. I think with something like that it actually helps you put things into perspective and help you not to take things for granted.

Planet Loud – Aside from the personal inspiration on the record, where else do you draw inspiration from ?
Mastodon – Life as a whole is a huge inspiration for us. Our journey as a band is very inspiring. Our musical inspirations are out there – bands like Neurosis, High On Fire, Mars Volta – our friends – they’ve made some records that we think are incredible and we knew that we couldn’t let them down. We wanted to just share in that inspiration.

Planet Loud – You brought Scott from Neurosis in to work on one track on the album..
Mastodon – We just felt that that particular riff reminded us of Scott and of Neurosis. He’s a really close friend of the band and so any opportunity to work with him or have him be on the record is definitely welcomed. It was perfect. Scott and I became close friends by sharing our experiences of extreme loss so that particular track seemed perfect for him.

Planet Loud – Do you remember when you met him?
Mastodon – We met in 1999 on a tour in the Europe when I was in the band Today Is The Day and we toured the UK with Neurosis and Voivod. We lived together on a bus with nineteen other people and we got to know each other then. It was hard to escape from people really and, by the end of that tour, I think everyone knew each other really well.

Planet Loud – Especially with nineteen other people on a bus..
Mastodon – Yeah, it was pretty intense. I was twenty two years old but it was my first tour of Europe and I didn’t care. I thought that was how it was supposed to be as we were on a bus for the first time. Before that I was used to touring around in a van so it was all the good to me. I was in Europe for the first time, I was playing drums and I was watching Voivod and Neurosis every night and that was pretty amazing for me.

Planet Loud – What did you learn from those experiences?
Mastodon – A lot because you’re on tour with two bands who’ve been doing it for nearly fifteen years and it made me want to start something of my own because I’d watch Neurosis and you could see their friendship and camaraderie and that they had been through everything as a band and, from day one, they could look at each other. It was that unspoken thing where you knew they were looking at each other and saying “you know, we built all of this together from the ground up”. I didn’t have that with Today Is The Day, it was impossible for me to have that because I came into the band ten years after their inception and they had a revolving door policy in terms of musicians. At that point Steve was as far removed from having a band as he possibly could be and was so into the idea of doing everything himself that it was hard for him to give up any kind of responsibility. It ended up with me being, not so much a hired hand, but someone that just helped out with the song-writing so it was hard to feel like you owned any of that history.

Planet Loud – That must be different with Mastodon then?
Mastodon – With Mastodon I can look at those guys and get that feeling. This year will be our tenth anniversary as a band so I can look at those guys and know that we’ve slept on piss-soaked floors together and done the whole thing. I’ve done it from the ground up and that’s what I wanted.

Planet Loud – Mastodon have never quite fitted into a specific scene or musical trend. Are you following what’s going on around you in terms of new music?
Mastodon – If I like something then I’ll listen to it but I wouldn’t say I’m out there actively searching for new bands. I figure if something is out there that I will dig someone will probably make me aware of it eventually.

Planet Loud – Does it feel strange hearing your band on mainstream radio?
Mastodon – I dunno because I don’t listen to the radio. I’m a movie freak so more than anything I’ll be inspired to write by movies that I’ve seen that have engrossed me or moved me in some way.

Planet Loud – You described listening to the album as feeling like you’ve just come out of watching a really heavy movie. What movie would you compare it to?
Mastodon – Space Odyssey 2001 or the Kubrick movies? Something was more texture to it.

Planet Loud – With your love of movies and bands like Pink Floyd and Genesis and King Crimson, how would you describe your average Mastodon fan?
Mastodon – I think we have a pretty broad fan base and I would hope that most of our fans are pretty open-minded and into a wide range of music like we are and are immersed into it. I think they would be into art that is really far out there. If they are then they should be ready for this record.

Planet Loud – What sort of records made a big impact on you growing up?
Mastodon – Oh man, where to begin? I stole ten dollars from my mum’s purse when I was a kid as she was sleeping and I walked to the record store and bought Piece Of Mind by Iron Maiden. I had two dollars left so I went to the basement of the shop and bought Kiss Destroyer and Back In Black by AC/DC. Those albums were in pretty heavy rotation from that point. From there it was pretty much metal for me but my parents would always put on stuff like Miles Davies or Beethoven. I was infatuated by Beethoven and The Beatles when I was about four years old and, anywhere we went to eat during that time, I would have to have a Beethoven burger or a Beethoven sandwich as I was pretty obsessed with Beethoven for a long time. When I was nine I became really obsessed with fifties music for about a year – Elvis, jukeboxes stuff like that. After that I got back into metal as I was playing drums more often and that’s when Metallica, Iron Maiden and Priest started to make a name for themselves. When I was sixteen I got into bands like Mr.Bungle to all the Buckethead, John Zorn, Naked City stuff and things really started to change. I was taking lots of acid and I’d listen to a lot of that stuff while on acid.

Planet Loud – What was that period like?
Mastodon – It was great, it took me to a lot of good spots. I’d played in my first serious band, Lethargy, and we were doing a lot of really wierd stuff and it was fun.

Planet Loud – I’ve only listened to the album on a laptop so far…
Mastodon – Oh fuck that man. That sucks. I’m glad you even like it after listening to it on a laptop.

Planet Loud – Tell me about it.. I was going to ask what is the best setting for listening to the album?
Mastodon – You gotta listen to it on the biggest and baddest stereo possible. Turn the lights off, sit back and let go.

Planet Loud – Do you think that music has lost that feel with the explosion of the I-pod generation?
Mastodon – I think our fans know more about music than, well, I know they’re part of that I-pod generation but I think that they have more musical knowledge to know how the record should be heard. I’d expect our fans to get the record then invite their friends around, sit down, shut up and blast the record as that is what I used to do when I got albums.

Planet Loud – How will the new songs fit into the live set considering that it should be played as a complete piece?
Mastodon – We’re going to play it as a whole. We’ll mix the other songs up so that they fit in there but when we go out to do our headline tour, we’re going to play the album as a whole. Obviously we can’t do that when we’re supporting Metallica but we plan to make the headline shows a full on hour and a half sets with visuals and stuff as I think we’re finally ready to do that stuff. We’re ready to step out on our own now and really become the band that we wanted to be.

Planet Loud – You mentioned visuals, do you mean similar to the way a band like Neurosis have done?
Mastodon – Definitely, that’s something we’ve always admired in bands like Neurosis and Tool. Those are the bands we wanted to be mentioned in the same breath as but now we’re going to go out and make it our own.

Interview by Graham Finney